


Un autre Noël

by Ark



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 'Tis The Season, 1830s, Anal Sex, Canon-Era, Fingering, First Time, Fixes, M/M, Oral Sex, Pretty much everything, Rimming, Sex, Slash, Smut, Sorry Victor Hugo Forever Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 16:26:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark/pseuds/Ark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Am I disturbing you, Grantaire?”</p><p>Profoundly. Grantaire draws on the nerves that keep him on his feet while boxing. Blows to the head make more sense than Enjolras darkening his doorstep on Christmas. He falls back. “No, of course not. Do come in. That is, if you have come to come in?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Un autre Noël

**Author's Note:**

> An anniversary present to celebrate a year of Les Miserables. We've come a long way, babies.

Grantaire is halfway through a fine bottle of Château Muret in honor of Marat, and a gift to himself, when the knock sounds. He blinks up from wine and book in surprise. Christmas Day is one of the quietest, save the children running past on the street with their new toys. 

Most of his friends have made their long journeys home for the holidays, and he knows he has paid out the month’s rent. Cautiously curious, he opens the door.

In his bright red coat and cap, Enjolras looks the inadvertent picture of the season, pink at the ears from the cold. It is cold in the hallway, and Enjolras’ breath shows white as he breathes. That he breathes shows Grantaire that he is not a vision.

Grantaire’s heart beats fast, and he licks his lip, furtive, trying to hide the traces of wine. When he manages to say nothing whatsoever, Enjolras shifts his weight, glancing beyond the door and then back to Grantaire.

“Am I disturbing you, Grantaire?”

Profoundly. Grantaire draws on the nerves that keep him on his feet while boxing. Blows to the head make more sense than Enjolras darkening his doorstep. He falls back. “No, of course not. Do come in. That is, if you have come to come in?” 

Christ have mercy he is babbling already, unhinged, making this much worse than even Enjolras might have imagined it would be. Far more likely that Enjolras has stopped by with some message, and then will be on his merry way. To a Christmas that expects him.

Why is Enjolras here on Christmas Day-eve at all? He should be at a sprawling chateau, reclined before the ancestral mantlepiece, the firelight daring to rival his hair --

“Thank you.” Incredibly, Enjolras is removing his hat and stepping inside. Enjolras passes the doorjamb and comes to rest in Grantaire’s front parlor. Grantaire is not sure what to do with the door; after a long moment of consideration he closes it. 

By some grace of God Grantaire has cleaned his rooms, to put all evidence of his final exams out of sight. Perhaps it fools Enjolras into thinking he is almost orderly. All the books are on the many bookshelves, and his canvases are stacked by the easel. 

By some grace of God no half-done study in Enjolras is on the easel. 

Instead there is the sketch begun of children playing on the snowy cobblestones outside, the old woman bent at her cart peeling potatoes, the cat that strolled past the windowsill sure-footed. His more placid cityscapes are hung on the walls. At the small table is the evidence of Grantaire’s Christmas feast: pastries from his landlady and the bottle of Muret.

“You did not return home for recess,” says Enjolras, after his keen gaze has swept and processed the premises. That much is self-evident, but he is trying to give Grantaire a means to speak, and Grantaire tries to remember how.

“No. My family has gone to take the waters in Bad Ragaz, on account of my sister’s health.” Grantaire makes himself move; accepts Enjolras’ hat and overcoat and hangs them up. He does not need to add that he had planned to go as well, but did not plan efficiently nor save the requisite funds. He feels terrible about it, and wishes he had not raised the subject at all, especially when Enjolras looks at him with concern -- perhaps the most sympathetic expression he has ever turned on Grantaire.

“I am sorry to hear it. I hope she will benefit from the visit.”

“The sentiment is appreciated,” says Grantaire. He needs a glass of wine in his hand, needs wine in his mouth. “May I offer you something to drink?”

“I --” Enjolras seems to reconsider his instinctual Puritanism. “Yes. The walk took longer than I expected, and I forgot my gloves. I could stand the warmth.”

Surprised and pleased and even more confused, Grantaire leads them toward the table. Enjolras takes a seat; Grantaire sees him do so, then crosses to the cupboard for a second glass. It is as good an opening as he can expect. Enjolras exists to madden him. “And the reason for your stroll?”

“I sought your rooms, but never having been here took a wrong turn, and went that way a while. All the shops and markets are shut up; windows are boarded, and it is snowing heavily now. I nearly went halfway back across the city, snowblind--”

Enjolras’ explanation for being here is that he has arrived on purpose. Grantaire still cannot fathom this. He pours a conservative cup for Enjolras, then more for himself, and sits opposite him at the table. Stares across the table, which holds the remains of a pastry and his book open spine-down. 

“You are welcome,” says Grantaire. He lifts his glass, and Enjolras echoes the motion; after that Grantaire’s allowed to drink again and does so. “I admit to some surprise that I am your final destination.”

“I passed a solitary supper; then it struck me that if there were one among our number who might not abide by the corruption of today, it would be the skeptic. Our friends eschew the tyranny of the church, but cannot let go of their childhood myths. I have made it a habit to deny that such a thing as Christmas is upon us. A false holiday, fashioned to placate slaves under the yolk and keep them under it. One day a year we may have off, to celebrate the birth of a magical child who wished bounty on all men. How magnanimously we enact his legacy.” By his third sip the wine has already set into Enjolras. 

Grantaire blinks back, then smiles crookedly. “To find us in agreement!” They toast again, despite the Christmas miracle. A quarter of the glass goes down in one gulp. “You suppose correctly. I have never been one for pageantry and tradition. If we were meant to have goodwill for mankind we would not need to have a feast day to enforce it. On the other hand,” he adds, taking devil’s advocate, “incredible that all the world decides to stop and perform variations on the same rituals but once a year. Surely there is a kind of power in that, if only of communal action across hierarchies, which you must appreciate.” 

Enjolras twirls the stem of his glass between his fine fingers; Grantaire’s sentence is barely punctuated before Enjolras launches into an argument about it, and the argument takes them through the rest of the bottle, until candlelight is showing through the green glass.

It is a pleasant and profoundly unexpected Christmas evening. They spend an hour like that, and one might even imagine that they are close friends without any discord between them. Enjolras’ full regard is rarely on Grantaire, and Grantaire, though terrifically anxious, thinks he handles it rather well.

That is until Enjolras says, “I did not come here to argue with you, Grantaire.”

“Why else?”

That Enjolras should color is no kind of response for Grantaire to interpret. Enjolras says, “You -- you have, in the past, indicated that you would not be indisposed to do me a favor.”

“I am at your service,” says Grantaire, as he often pronounces. “I am Iris, messenger of the Gods, ready to fly on your command.” 

“It is not a mission such as that.” Enjolras hesitates, reluctant, and Enjolras is never reluctant; Grantaire has never paid him such rapt attention. “You make boasts of broad experience, yet you are prone to exaggeration by the same account.” One fair eyebrow tilts up. “Are your stories of conquest so embellished?”

“All tales are embroidered by the teller,” allows Grantaire, beating heart in his throat that the topic should be thus. He tries to sound diplomatic, unmoved. Sounds squirrelly instead. “A gentleman does not reveal all.” 

“They are false, then?”

“I did not say that.” Grantaire’s glass is drained and he frowns at it, shifts in his chair. Tries to choose words carefully, because he has no idea what Enjolras wants to hear from him on the subject. Of all subjects Grantaire would have expected to be quizzed upon, this is the very last. He spreads his hands. “Though it may amaze you, some find my company to be pleasant enough.” 

He should not have added the dig; Enjolras’ questioning face closes. Grantaire curses internally, while Enjolras swallows and takes a long moment to speak.

“Then you are at present engaged?” It is so soft Grantaire is sure he has misheard.

“Engaged?” The word rings strange and has no connotions with the people that pass through Grantaire’s bed. He realizes what Enjolras is asking after and shakes his head, incredulous. “Those so bound do not spend Christmas alone, but in the arms of a willing mistress.” 

“Yes.” Now Enjolras is looking quite strangled. After that he does not say anything at all.

Grantaire stares at him. The conversation has become so surreal what he wants to do is paint it, preserve the incredible sight of Enjolras flush and blushing, red beneath his yellow mane. 

“Enjolras, are you asking --” Grantaire makes himself say it, a proposal he never thought he’d be permitted to make. “Would you -- engage?”

Enjolras’ relief at not having to say so is evident. “Only if you are unopposed,” he says, the tempting bow of his mouth drawn flat and serious. “I would not command such a boon from you, but hope it freely given.”

“That is a question whose answer you know,” says Grantaire, finding that he must look away. 

“My own experience is sorely lacking,” says Enjolras, in quiet reveal. He has never pretended otherwise, but has never spoken openly of it before. It is a gesture of trust, and Grantaire meets his gaze again. “This state has started to unsettle me. Before I did not think such matters worth the distraction nor the time sacrificed; but as of late, as I try to persuade men to my side, I find too many who frown upon my youth, or laugh outright and call me a babe in arms. I find others whom I cannot address, my life having been so different than their own. I would not be so far from my fellows.”

“That is -- that is generous logic.” Grantaire is struggling. He does not know whether to fling himself across the table at Enjolras or to bolt the room. This is too much, his wildest dreams blossoming, ripe for plucking. He bites his lip hard enough to taste blood. He tries to be bold. “What sort of education to you seek?”

“My knowledge of the Classics pales against yours.” Enjolras inclines his head, showing empty hands. “I am unlearned.”

“Luckily,” says Grantaire, “the study is my favorite.” 

He gets up from the table, only a half-step unsteady, and Enjolras moves to follow. With little more than that they are agreed. 

Grantaire’s bedroom masquerades as tidy since it is practically empty, just the bed on its wooden frame in the corner, a desk and chair, a bedside table doubling as bookshelf, and a broken old sitar found at market mounted on the wall. 

Grantaire has always spoken through these sorts of acts; with Enjolras can hardly be the exception. Up until now all he and Enjolras have done is talk at one another, to no conducive end. 

This seems a better use of their clashing energies, though he can scarcely come to terms that he has been given permission -- requested specifically for the most intimate sort of service. Truth be told, it is one of the proudest moments of Grantaire’s life. 

He has no delusions that Enjolras feels anything for him past his convenience; still, it is a confidence of the kind no one has shared with Enjolras before. Come to the quick, he has chosen Grantaire from the lot of them. For once Grantaire is uniquely suited to Enjolras’ ambitions.

When Enjolras starts to strip free of his clothing with brisk efficiency, Grantaire reaches out to catch his hands. He undresses him attentively, as a squire would unclothe his knight, drawing off each garment to reveal Enjolras’ body in the dim light. Enjolras’ body is proof that there is something pure and beautiful in this ruin of a world. 

“I do not know,” says Grantaire, low, naked admiration on his face, “if the urge to have you or to paint you is stronger.”

“Bring out a canvas,” says Enjolras, unembarrassed. “I will lie down on it and you can trace me. A compromise.”

Grantaire is startled into a laugh. “Had I known your sense of humor was to be found in the bedroom, I would have begged you to attend one long ago.”

“Is that so?” Enjolras’ eyebrows arch; Grantaire has left his own garments on, and Enjolras’ expression suggests he dislikes the unequal field. “You are not shy in what you have implied to me in the past, when you are in your cups.”

Grantaire flinches. “Forgive my uncouth tongue,” he says. “I have never thought myself worthy of your attention. I merely aspire to cross it.”

“Put words to deed,” says Enjolras. He crosses his strong arms, waiting, doing a good job of not showing nerves. He might be made of marble, a statue of the Bossy Virgin. 

Helpless, Grantaire laughs again. Then he goes to his knees.

It should start thus, in worship. He kisses Enjolras’ feet, mouths along his ankles, puts his tongue to the spot that brought down Achilles. He kisses the caps of Enjolras’ knees, brushes lips up his milk-pale thighs. Enjolras’ cock is soft but stirring, and made as well as the rest of him. Gooseflesh raises on Enjolras’ taut skin and he inhales a sharp breath; he fixes a hand to Grantaire’s shoulder to stay steady, and Grantaire reads permission in the grasp.

Truly, they might have come to it sooner. This is the role Grantaire is meant to play in their club, on their stage; before it has eluded him, to his despair, and Enjolras’ disdain. Grantaire has failed at tasks set before him, but in this he will not fail. He takes Enjolras into his mouth with reverence and skill, and is rewarded when Enjolras gasps. Enjolras is not used to the things that Grantaire is exceptionally good at.

Because he can, he treats Enjolras to all the tricks of the trade, with a dexterity that would make any brothel-worker weep with envy. This is what he has trained for, he thinks, deep-throating Enjolras’ cock regardless of its daunting length: this is what Grantaire is designed and designated to do. 

All the other times he sucked cock was in anticipation of this cock, grown long and thick and lovely on his tongue. He uncovers the rhythm that Enjolras likes best, his favorite kind of pressure, the places that cause him to tense. Every sound he makes is a masterpiece to Grantaire’s ears. Grantaire keeps going, even when Enjolras tries to move away.

As much as he can, Grantaire shakes his head. Then he pulls up to suck just the head of Enjolras’ cock until Enjolras pleads, his braced thighs quivering.

“Grantaire.” His name is music on the breeze. “Grantaire, please. I cannot hold off--”

Enjolras means for him to move away, but Grantaire goes deeper still, holds all of him in. Enjolras pulses bittersweet, pools into his mouth, and Grantaire swallows once more. His jaw feels unhinged and his throat is raw; there are tears in his eyes from the effort and his cheek is wet. He waits to feel Enjolras’ pleasure expend, wants every drop as evidence of his success. Enjolras’ hand is tight in his hair but soon relaxes, and he stands as though boneless.

Enjolras gazes down, dazed. Debauched is an excellent look on him, has taken him by surprise. His breath is shallow, and he is slow to extract his hand from Grantaire’s tangled hair. When he does so at last he cups Grantaire’s jaw and runs his thumb along the line of Grantaire’s cheekbone. He is looking at Grantaire like he has never seen him before. Grantaire keeps his eyes open and on Enjolras as he draws back along his cock.

“So that is why men speak of it,” says Enjolras.

Now Grantaire closes his eyes, and when he opens them Enjolras is leaning to help him up. With this much established between them Enjolras stands more confidently, no longer seems apt to shy away. 

Enjolras is starting to discover that alongside indulgence there is a power to sexual congress that is headier than wine. Already they are transmuted, transformed from what they were. They are lovers, will always have loved, no matter what else they will do. It makes it easier to go on.

Enjolras, no longer virgin, wears his new maturity boldly. He has become all the more dangerously beautiful, his cherub’s face altered: fiercer, honed, more intent, a hawk free of jesses. “I would know the range of lessons.”

Grantaire pauses, for breath and because he is reeling: “There are too many to learn in an evening, even an unholy one.” His mouth quirks. He knows his lips are swollen. His heart is knocking against his ribcage. “You must choose.”

Enjolras’ eyes narrow. “You mock my ignorance.”

“I never will. What do you know of the acts of love?”

“What is in books,” says Enjolras, markedly uncomfortable to be caught out, “and what you have demonstrated.”

“And when you read, what do you desire?”

“My mind does not debase literature in the way that you say.” Yet Enjolras pauses. Even the angel is subject to improper thoughts. “There was a vase, in a museum, when I was young--”

“Sing, Muse.”

“Two warriors. One bent over the other,” says Enjolras. All at once he seems far away, and still young. “Before I saw them I did not know such a thing could be, that a man might lie with a man as he did a woman. Later I learned that it stirred me because I desired the same. At least,” he amends, with a sideways glance at Grantaire, “I believe it so.”

Step by step, Grantaire advances, begins to back him towards the bed. Remembers that he is meant to take the lead in this and attempts at daring. “You have thought of it since.” Another step. “In bed, alone at night. Your hand on your exquisite cock. Do you touch yourself, Enjolras?”

“Grantaire--”

“In bed in the mornings, then, when you wake up stiff. Do you stroke your cock, Enjolras, and think of the vase?”

Enjolras’ expression is reserve warring with desire. The backs of his legs run up against the bed. 

Grantaire reaches out and finds the strength to push him down upon it. “When you think of the vase, Enjolras,” he says, his voice strained, invoking the name a third time like a spell, “where are you?”

Silent, Enjolras turns on the mattress, onto his knees. 

The breath catches in Grantaire’s throat. “You have thought through it?”

A nod, crowned with gold. 

“Have I been with you?” He does not know where he finds the courage to ask.

Enjolras is quite still. Then he cants his head. All of his angles are drawn into submission. He is recomposed, revealing his most hidden self.

“I would have you educated,” says Grantaire. “It is...much to bear, the first time.”

Enjolras shrugs this away. “It is not a habit of mine to be afraid.”

“I did not say you should be frightened.” Grantaire dares move closer, and fit his hand to the curve of Enjolras’ hipbone. “Nor would I expect it of you. You are brave.”

“There is no experience on Earth worth having that does not challenge,” says Enjolras, philosophical. Then he is less certain, and darts a furtive look Grantaire’s direction, then at his pillows. The vulnerability of the position is considerable; Enjolras generally has trenches dug around him, and now he is bare. “How do I prepare?”

“That pleasure is mine,” answers Grantaire. 

What will Enjolras think of the secret lessons, the ones no one writes down? Men are beasts, and use their bodies as animals do; in his pastoral dreams Enjolras cannot have imagined what they are capable of. The certainty of Grantaire’s mission sharpens. He is meant to show Enjolras the hidden things men and women do behind locked doors, so that Enjolras can master them and add sex to the repertoire of his tactics. It will serve Enjolras well; empires have fallen for far less. “Do you trust me?”

“You have not led me astray tonight,” says Enjolras. “I trust you in this as I do no other.”

It is not trust, complete; nonetheless it flatters. Suddenly shy, Grantaire fusses out of his own clothing; hardly seductive, yet Enjolras watches with interest. 

There is no way to conceal Grantaire’s arousal, how badly he desires; he is often hard around Enjolras, and around Enjolras on his hands and knees he could spend from the sight alone. His cock has never met with complaint; he has called it his finest feature and not been exaggerating. Still to a first-time partner he is imposing, and to Enjolras’ inexperienced eyes he must seem to stretch the boundaries of anatomy. Enjolras, who blinks in quick succession.

“I will be split in half,” he protests.

“By then you will be ready. We are only at the beginning.” Grantaire’s figure, trim from dancing and flaneuring, is another point of pride. He knows his carriage is graceful, that his body pleases when no one would beg to paint his portrait. Enjolras watches him come closer, making no attempt to hide his appreciation. Grantaire moves to settle beside him on the bed. He breathes out. 

At the first touch of tongue Enjolras locks up all over, jerks forward. Grantaire is there to waylay him. The second lick is wet with purpose and firm with intent. The third jolts a raw groan from Enjolras that is like ambrosia. The fourth edges past the tight ring of muscle, opens Enjolras up to Grantaire’s busy mouth. No one has told Enjolras that mouths may be thus employed, but it is a lesson that he swiftly takes in. Grantaire has Enjolras’ firm cheeks spread beneath his fingers, and soon enough Grantaire’s tongue can delve deep. The fifth goes deep.

All around him Enjolras is trembling. It does not stop Enjolras from rocking back, seeking friction. His head is hanging between his arms, his hair a bright cascade. He is wonderfully responsive once he is finished with the shock. He becomes quite resigned to it, pressing against Grantaire, taking more, demanding more. His hands are white-knuckled fists against the bedsheets.

“What witchcraft is this?” pants Enjolras.

Grantaire has lost count of licks. “As much the purview of monks as witches,” he says, then sets his teeth to the half-globe of Enjolras’ buttock before he can persuade himself not to. Enjolras shivers but stays steady through the bite. Grantaire may devour him. “Do you enjoy it?”

“It -- it is not displeasing,” manages Enjolras, who had cried out.

Grantaire reaches down, glad that Enjolras cannot see how his hand shakes, and gently thumbs Enjolras’ entrance, slick from his administrations. 

That is when Enjolras swings a look back, over his shoulder, and Grantaire must come to bear with the idea that Enjolras glimpses him here and is allowing it. Enjolras looking back sees Grantaire looming nude above him, touching him most intimately, and he does not flee.

Grantaire can hardly breathe, but he finds breath enough to say, “We are at the next chapter, when you are ready.”

“I would be well read,” Enjolras says.

The finger Grantaire pushes inside him sinks to the knuckle before Enjolras makes a sound. Grantaire delicately withdraws it to repeat; he will be more careful in this than he has approached any other undertaking. It is paramount that Enjolras receive the utmost pleasure from a preparation often hurried. 

Some men would ready him too quickly, overcome by his beauty, desperate to possess him; but Grantaire has had a long time to contemplate Enjolras’ graces, has had stretches of days where he has done little else. He has wrought Enjolras in fine oils and blended charcoals. To have the model breathing before him is staggering. He will take the time to make this as good for Enjolras as is in his power. It should ever be thus for a first time. The responsibility is enormous, and he will show Enjolras that it is not misplaced.

“Speak a word and I will desist,” says Grantaire, leaning over to retrieve the vial of oil by the bedside that for too many months has served only his own purposes.

“It is you who should be speaking,” murmurs Enjolras, his face hidden in his hair. “It is strange to hear you be silent.”

“I am yours to direct,” says Grantaire, pouring oil into his palm to warm it. “Some nights, this is how Achilles commanded Patroclus, and Alexander bid Hephaestion. They knelt between the thighs they adored, and laid their hands upon the altar--” One primed finger returns, this time sliding all the way in. 

Enjolras is tight beyond belief, but there is little resistance, and his tensed muscles relax after a moment. Grantaire strokes him thus until he can grow accustomed to it, and when the sensation is known, he shows Enjolras why men still seek this though some Gods forbid it. Why other Gods sought it. He sparks Enjolras from within, and Enjolras bows his head and curses, sacred and profane.

Nothing in the world is so crucial as Enjolras taking a second finger without protest. He only protests the third, though by then he is well-stretched and has learned how to ride the intrusion. 

Grantaire smoothes his free hand across the ivory flank. “Is it too much?”

“It is not enough.” Enjolras’ teeth are clenched. Even when every push lights him up he pushes back, greedy for more. “Grantaire! You would undo me again.”

“All night and into the day,” Grantaire confesses. 

“Come into me instead,” says Enjolras.

Grantaire can say nothing to this. It is the simplest thing in the world to do. It is the most innate instinct. It is what he has desired since he laid eyes upon Enjolras in the midst of a fiery speech. It is the most difficult.

Grantaire takes his cock in hand and takes a while to line himself up. He lets Enjolras feel and test the weight of the blunt head, then guides it in. The breach is ponderously slow. Half an inch has Enjolras gasping. Grantaire has done his work well, however, and the passage is wet and willing. He thrusts forward and is readily received.

Enjolras exclaims, accedes, so Grantaire buries all of himself. He is as a sword sheathed.

“Ah,” says Enjolras, “ah,” and he presses his forehead to the bed.

Grantaire, held inside him, is overcome. No mind that he is meant to be the expert here. He has abruptly forgotten everything. Tentative, he rolls his hips, kept in a vise of heated flesh. Any motion whatsoever makes Enjolras moan, and it is impossible not to exploit this discovery, circling while he waits for Enjolras to adjust to his length.

It takes a while, and Grantaire cannot help but drop his head, and mouth at Enjolras’ neck, the throat like veined marble. Sweat is running from Enjolras’ brow and Grantaire tastes salt behind his ear. 

All at once Enjolras sighs, and gives over; the last resistance leaves his body, and Grantaire follows the motion to drape over his back as a heavy weight. Enjolras bears him, and when his hand snakes to grasp Grantaire’s on the bed, Grantaire pulls out and then thrusts in again, and again and again and again, and he meant to go so slowly but Enjolras is tight and slick and so _ready_ , so extraordinarily tight even as Grantaire starts to fuck him in earnest. 

He frees his hands and lets them span Enjolras’ hips. He grips hard enough to mark. The quartermoons of his nails on Enjolras’ flawless skin. The sight of Grantaire’s cock splitting him in half. Enjolras bent in half, like a warrior on a vase.

Never quiet, wonderfully vocal, Enjolras matches the pace and eclipses it. The punishing hold is necessary; in his arms Enjolras writhes, changes shape, might vanish like a fairy if he lets go. It is a fairytale for Grantaire: where else does the common vagabond get to dance with the elfin prince in cloth of gold?

They are young, and stamina is on their side. They are in the prime of life. Grantaire, an athlete, has fenced many foils without respite; Enjolras, a firebrand, has stood up through hours of argumentation and shouted down all challenges. Their combined momentum, they find, is infinite.

There is a low sound from Enjolras’ marble throat and the sound of flesh on flesh when Grantaire regains a semblance of self-control. It is Enjolras who moves to flatten his body against the bed, so that Grantaire is drawn even deeper, straddling him; Enjolras who discovers the position, one of Grantaire’s favorites. It is advanced work, but Enjolras is a quick study, and he has a pillow mashed up in his arms, and sometimes his white teeth gnash the pillow.

At the start Grantaire imagined that he would go about this soft and gently, make the kind of love to Enjolras that poets like Prouvaire wrote verses about. Likely they would never speak of it again, let alone repeat the experience, and Enjolras could stand an evening of flowery couplets. After the excellent employment of his mouth, Grantaire had intended to take Enjolras delicately; draw out sighs and kiss his sun-touched brow; pronounce paeans to his milky thighs. 

He might have known better. Enjolras hates nothing so much as wasting time. No poems and tender caresses for him. Enjolras is more of the animal than the pastoral after all. 

In his life outside the bedroom he has no space for romance, for all those risky entrapments; as such he is called sexless by society. But all Enjolras lacks is the will to abide ponderous traditions. Courting promises a future that he cannot abide. Prostitutes are fallen sisters and brothers whose condition he despises and would not exacerbate. He does not know the places to go where other young men of his inclination reveal themselves. What Enjolras lacked was opportunity and outlet. In desperation he selected Grantaire, but not for loving. This is fucking, as the word is defined.

Grantaire fucks him, the snap of his hips and drive of his cock relentless, each stroke racking them, their sweat-shiny bodies in ancient sync. Enjolras takes every thrust and gives it back, demands more and deeper and harder, and Grantaire can but oblige. A day ago, the thought of pressing a kiss to Enjolras’ pale hand would have undone Grantaire. Now he cleaves Enjolras and has the will and means to make Enjolras moan for him, a concept as previously unattainable as the moon.

“Is this why you walked across Paris tonight, Enjolras?” Grantaire murmurs, drawing out, then sliding in with punishing precision. “Did you see this before you as you walked?” He must ever provoke him; some things about them cannot be altered.

It takes three breaths; Enjolras’ breath is an irregular huff. “I -- I could not know it would be thus.”

That could mean anything, from the intense, explosive pleasure Grantaire has tried every trick in the book to bank, to discomfort or disinclination. Grantaire’s hips stutter, uncertain, and he loses their rhythm.

That is when Enjolras tosses back his golden head and Grantaire sees his eyes, and they are the eyes of a Maenad given over to the God in a wild wood, his pupils blown black. “Do not _stop!_ ”

Grantaire, his prowess reassured, his brain on fire at the results, plunges madly on. If they had candles burning they would melt down and go out. He loses track of time, loses track of himself in Enjolras. 

This is where Grantaire never believed he would permitted. It is a strange thing to attain one’s fondest dream and find the reality even better and far more complicated. He could not have imagined how voraciously Enjolras would take to fucking; even stories told to himself at night on the topic were cynical. He could not have imagined the pennant of Enjolras’ hair, how it flies and flags with their motion. He could not have imagined that Enjolras would have eyes made dark with need, and that he would use them to look at Grantaire.

Grantaire resumes, carrying out the order with an alacrity and obedience to Enjolras’ expectation that he has never met before and may never execute again. He grips Enjolras at the hip and shoulder and rides at breakneck speed, as though to take them far from here.

It seems to last for an eternity. Grantaire is proud of his body’s cooperation but cannot force down his own reaction forever. He might have spent twenty times over but bites his lip to crest the daunting wave, drags free on a distant shore. When the tide tugs at his belly for what he knows must be the last he is determined to rise with it. 

He slows enough that every inch is felt, every place where skin meets skin is considered; he slows to make each thrust count, no longer savage -- civilized, after the Grecian way. He makes every thrust set Enjolras afire, so that Grantaire can feel him burning.

“ _Please,_ ” sighs Enjolras, a general ‘please,’ requesting nothing so specific as continuation, so Grantaire carries on. His hand slips down to palm and then fist Enjolras’ perfect cock, which has hardened under the onslaught. Grantaire resolves to bring him off a second time, to inscribe this activity in Enjolras’ memory that he might not soon forget. 

“I am close to the quick,” says Grantaire, in warning, to himself and Enjolras, wanting Enjolras to be forewarned, should this be unsavory to him. By the way he strives and groans in Grantaire’s arms it is not unsavory, and when Enjolras tightens and shudders and shatters in the sought-after release Grantaire holds him through it, holds deep inside. It takes all his willpower not to follow after. “ _Enjolras_. Can I--”

“No,” whispers Enjolras, his voice pinched nearly to falsetto. Grantaire seizes up, and Enjolras is already pulling off of his cock, and both of them gasping about it. Grantaire mourns the loss as he has never mourned. 

But Enjolras is not moving away, is not discarding him. Enjolras is turning to face him on his knees. Enjolras’ hand reaches out, tentative, and then it makes a ring at the base of Grantaire’s cock, firm and sure. “I would attempt what you achieved before.” 

And that is the warning Grantaire receives before Enjolras ducks down to put his mouth on Grantaire’s cock. Wet, suctioning heat returns, glorious. Enjolras is untried but adamant, and he works Grantaire between his lips and applies his tongue, and Grantaire, daring after all he has dared, lets his fingers find Enjolras’ hair and fix him in place; and he warns when it comes upon him, but Enjolras does not move back. 

Grantaire would paint this if he could but he knows that he cannot. His cock caught halfway down Enjolras’ throat. Enjolras bent over him to take it, the way Grantaire spills and the way Enjolras does not flinch, but awaits as though eager, the the way his tongue sweeps Grantaire’s pulsing length. Pearlescent drops mark Enjolras’ red lips, the stubborn jut of his chin, but he swallows and swallows, and when he raises his defiant eyes he is asking for more. Grantaire tugs his hair hard enough to hurt, hard enough to give himself an anchor, and ventures to the constellations. He has many favorite myths to greet.

When he comes back from the stars they are much the same. He slips from Enjolras’ mouth and lets go his golden hair. Enjolras takes a moment in composition. He passes an arm across his face to cleanse it, then sits up and back. Both kneeling, he is taller than Grantaire again, and he lifts a hand to Grantaire’s cheek. After what has passed between them it should be a small gesture, but it feels as intimate as being inside him. Wondering, Grantaire puts his hand on Enjolras’.

“Patroclus,” says Achilles.

Grantaire closes his eyes at the acknowledgment, the title borne out of ages; it is all the praise he might wish for encompassed. His eyes find Enjolras’, as Patroclus might have considered Achilles, worried and worshipful. They hold like that. Then the exertion of the affair strikes both down at once, and it is easy enough to collapse horizontal, touching here and there as they lie breathing for a more certain air.

Now that it is complete Grantaire, with a wrist over his eyes, can hardly bear to go on. This is the other side that he has been dreading; this is when Enjolras becomes an avenging Fury again, distant and sharp-clawed. Enjolras will bristle and recoil, no doubt already regretting what was done, and though Grantaire is used to Enjolras’ repulsion this will be the hardest to meet.

“Was it...was it pleasing to you?”

Astonishingly Enjolras’ voice is small, and not furious. Grantaire shakes himself. Makes himself remember, through the instinctual haze of self-pity, that Enjolras has just lain with another for the first time in his youthful life. There are many emotions that attend, and uncertainties, and Grantaire silently curses for having forgotten that Enjolras’ perspective might be considered before his own.

 _Was it pleasing._ Did the Earth orbit the sun. But that was once open for questioning, so Grantaire does not say so. Instead he says, honest, “It was the best I ever had.”

Enjolras is not one to take a compliment lying down. Especially not then. “Truly?”

“I am incapable of lying post-coitus, usually to my chagrin.” Grantaire still cannot look at him, but he ventures, “Did the God find what he sought amongst the mortals?”

“I -- I understand the concern, now.” Enjolras is rarely diplomatic, and it is a delight to hear him pick and choose his words. “I did not expect to take to it so avidly.”

“Nor I.” That they can share some humor must surely be a good sign. Cautious, Grantaire removes his wrist-guard. Enjolras is looking back at him, propped on an elbow in bed, blue eyes wide and satisfied. 

It is over, it is past-tense, so Grantaire must know. “How came I to be your choice?”

Enjolras stretches, triumphant in repose, as though he he has run a marathon. Crowned with laurels, he is curiously unshielded. “I thought that you would give me what I sought,” he answers, then pauses, as though that sounds callous even to his ears. “I did not think you would be indisposed.”

“You knew I would not be,” Grantaire agrees. Stranger even than their physical intimacy is to lie about discussing it, yet it is not so strange; neither change the subject. “How long have you considered the proposal?”

“Some weeks.” Enjolras lifts his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Months, perhaps. I am not over-inclined to such thoughts.” 

Grantaire could cry out from wasted days.

“And Christmas seemed to you the opportune time?”

“Was it not?” Another shrug from Enjolras. “All the world rests; why should we?”

Grantaire’s laughter is heady, and in the rush of it he forgets himself. “That I love you so will be my undoing.”

Enjolras goes still. Grantaire, in unknown lands, tries to bargain: “Can you be amazed to hear it spoken? I have said as much before.”

“Orated to cups and bottles and candles,” says Enjolras. “Never to me.”

“I would tell you every morning, it I could,” says Grantaire, squandering their stolen intimacy with honesty. “And many more times at night.”

“You speak nonsense,” says Enjolras, yet Grantaire does not think he imagines the way Enjolras’ mouth turns up at the edges. 

Grantaire takes the topic backwards, needing to hear more. “Surely there are others better suited to your purposes.”

Incredibly, like it is a game, Enjolras indulges him. “Name them.”

“Combeferre.”

“Sympathetic to my plight and inclined to prompt me toward further experimentation, but disinclined to be part of the process.” Enjolras responds readily enough. 

“Courfeyrac?”

“He has offered, and I considered it before. His experience encouraged. I was not sure we would be compatible in the act.” 

The latter half of the statement is slower for Enjolras to pronounce, and Grantaire seizes on it. “Why for?”

This takes even longer. “I had not thought on him.”

“And on me?”

“Mostly with frustration,” says Enjolras, “but when I stopped being angry, I wanted to punish you in ways that were neither proportionate nor appropriate.”

Grantaire’s mouth goes dry, but he will not let this pass. “And like the vase.”

“What?” says Enjolras, growing impatient, then tamping down his temper. “Oh, yes, that. Yes, sometimes like that.”

“In bed, at night.”

“Quite enough, Grantaire.” The limit is reached, farther than Grantaire thought he could push, and Enjolras isn’t even frowning. He stares back with something approaching a fond indulgence, the most unexpected reaction of the evening. 

Grantaire makes a motion of sealing up his mouth. “Have no fear, mon capitaine. I will not speak of it hence.”

“I trust that you will not.” The humor from a moment ago is gone, and Enjolras looks much too serious with his eyebrows knit together.

Something twists inside Grantaire; it is his stomach, in a backflip. They come to it without warning. He tries to keep the bitterness from his tone, from his expression, tries with all the courage he can summon. The gift Enjolras gave of himself is worth any price, even the price of pretending that it never occurred. It is unspoken between them, unwritten, that they should not come through this so different. They would go back to their normal roles, Grantaire having filled the one he was called for.

“Do not worry, Enjolras,” Grantaire hears himself say from a reassuring distance. “I would not share this with any other.” Not that they would believe him.

Enjolras, seeming mollified, gives another stretch against the bedsheets. He does not drive the point home further, nor stoop to pick it up. “Shall I sleep here or be cast into the snow?”

“Anyone would think you a politician, by your subtle persuasion.” Grantaire is aglow. “You may even keep my favorite pillow, which you clutch.”

“Your hospitality is renowned,” says Enjolras. But he tucks comfortably into the bed, the blankets thankfully staying tangled in his feet and leaving his torso bare. 

“Enjolras?”

“Yes?”

“Merry Christmas. Well, perhaps not Christmas. The Christians shifted the day of Christ’s birth to fit over the pagan solstice, which is the true day. We might have had dancing and rejoicing and celebration.”

“Did we not,” murmurs Enjolras.

Grantaire risks an arm slung over Enjolras’ belly, where it lands and is not cast off. 

“Enjolras?”

“Go to sleep, Grantaire.”

“Good night,” whispers Grantaire. 

“Good night.”

It is a good night.

In the morning that arrives too quickly Grantaire opens his eyes curled up on his side and afraid of a lonely bed. The idea that yesterday’s indelible memories have been the result of the Muret and a mix of opiates seems a dawning certainty. He struggles out of the hateful sleep that has moved him so far from it. 

Close by, Enjolras lies still sleeping. His fair eyelashes fan his cheek, and his rosy lips are parted to the air. He takes up half the bed in his sprawl, and he is so spectacular he rivals Endymion, put asleep forever for his beauty.

Grantaire is granted some moments to watch him rest, as rare and precious as all the other acts. Perhaps he is also the first to glimpse Enjolras like this, his hair unravelled from tossing, his warrior’s face peaceful and slack. When the clouded blue eyes blink open Grantaire must crush the urge to launch into a lullaby and lull him back. At least while Enjolras dreams elsewhere Grantaire can keep him.

He expects brusque treatment and strained politeness, a quick dive from sheets to clothing and out the door, Enjolras’ boots fast down the stair. He does not expect Enjolras to roll over atop him, and put his lips to Grantaire’s ear.

“I liked it well,” says Enjolras, “but I think I should like to try the other way.”

Enjolras reaches and has the oil in hand already -- a fast study, eager for advancement. He emulates Grantaire’s actions from the night before, but frowns to find his technique imperfect. He begins too hurriedly, with two fingers, and all of the air hisses from Grantaire’s lungs.

“You must speak me through it,” says Enjolras.

“Let me lift my legs -- yes, that’s better. Like that. Gentler, if you can -- it has been some time, for all my bragging -- yes. Yes. Now you have got the motion of it. Ah, to look at you. Can you twist your fingers, and press them further? You do so well--”

“A third, now?”

“A third. With the light from the window on your hair you are Apollo himself, and the sun’s mantle is worn across your shoulders as a cloak.”

Enjolras gives him a _look_ , but also another finger with a delicious stretch, and Grantaire’s hips come off the bed to meet him.

“Can I have you thus, or would you turn?”

“Such impatience! How you make me blush. Wait, Enjolras, a moment longer--”

“...Am I hurting you, Grantaire?”

“N-n--”

“Grantaire?”

“No. You are perfection--”

“Oh. _Oh._ ”

“That is very -- very good. I have all of you, now.”

“I must move. You fit me too well.”

“I am resigned to both.”

“Which do you prefer, if I go slowly, as such, or if I speed my hips, like this?”

“I am of two minds about it.”

“You are impossible.”

“Impossibly desirous, evidently. Also dextrous.”

“Arrogant, too--”

“Ah, Enjolras, faster--”

“Quarrelsome and attention-seeking. Demanding.”

“Yes, like that--”

“Like this?”

“...”

“To think that I have found a way to silence you, Grantaire.”

“Your lip is bleeding, Grantaire.”

Enjolras kisses him, fucking him to within an inch of his life, with Grantaire far past caring about living or bleeding but caring quite a lot about kissing. It is a soft kiss at first, delivered to soothe his split mouth, bitten as Enjolras drove himself ever on and deeper. Enjolras’ tongue edges out, curious, and Grantaire opens to let him in, tasting copper and Enjolras, who tastes of salt and wine and sex.

Enjolras’ open eyes widen. He has not known how kissing can intensify sensation, narrow out the rest of the world to the circumference of mouths. His thrusts become more regular, grounded, and he presses down on Grantaire’s hipbones to pin him in place. Enjolras has found just the angle to excite and make Grantaire toss his head, and once uncovered he pushes them towards the brink. He claims Grantaire again and again, while Grantaire takes Enjolras’ cock and his tongue and thinks the world can now end happily.

They come to the end too soon, though admirably enough for Enjolras’ inexperience. Grantaire wraps his arms and legs around Enjolras and Enjolras braces above and moves into Grantaire and spends in him so deep, so deep. Enjolras who reaches between their bodies and draws Grantaire along with him, and Grantaire barely requires the touch of his hand before he is undone. They mark each other inside and out. On his neck, Enjolras is raising a mottled bloodbruise.

Grantaire mourned the loss of him last night, but that is nothing to compare to Enjolras softening and slipping free. Enjolras does not pull out, simply stays until it is natural to go, and Grantaire wants to weep that he cannot hold him longer. For the space of time he contained Enjolras his head had been quiet of everything save lust and wonder. No doubt, no self-hatred, no endless ruminations on all that could and must go wrong. 

Only Enjolras, above him, in him, proving with his presence that Grantaire is worth the time, the space that he takes up. 

“Casanova cast himself into the sea,” says Grantaire, when Enjolras seems to be looking to him for response. Judging by Enjolras’ expression he knows his own must be as shocked and drained and dreamy. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“I have had Libertine instruction.” Enjolras, a regal lion given cream, relaxes next to Grantaire on the bed. He seems disinclined to go anywhere fast, and Grantaire wants to bind him there to be sure. “My tutor is justified in his credentials.”

“Flattery, sir, will get you everywhere--”

“May we do so again?”

A desperate laugh escapes from Grantaire. “Eros! You cannot be ready so soon--”

“I could,” interjects Enjolras, sounding wounded, and thrilling Grantaire, “but I did not mean it as such. My time is rarely my own, and it feels as though the winds are changing, will soon sweep in our direction. Our chance for change approaches, and we will must strive for it; the window of opportunity will be small when it arrives. But perhaps -- perhaps until then we might have one night per week, or on Sundays, set aside to study.”

“Christmas and Sundays! Imagine Easter. How you delight in blasphemy, Enjolras. It is the most enticing thing about you.” Grantaire smiles and leers to cover the lurch of his heart and stomach. Enjolras may as well have spoken Swedish as made the suggestion. When he does not retract it, only waits, Grantaire says, “I, too, am quite overburdened with appointments, at the wine-shop and the cabaret and several promises of friendly meals and absinthe-tastings; but it is possible I will have the time to further your lessons. Ask me again in an hour.”

“Your cooperation is appreciated,” says Enjolras with the same mock-gravity, but not so dry that it emerges as a false statement. He sounds genuinely relieved. He lets Grantaire slide across the bed, allows Grantaire’s arm to come around him. They drowse in the lulling warmth of well-used bodies and settled minds.

That is until Enjolras speaks into the quiet: “Is it always like this?”

“No, mon cher, it is not.” Grantaire cannot say it all. He pretends that they speak of other things. “Every time is different. It is the variety that keeps people so enamored. There are few enough things worth living for.”

Enjolras pulls a thoughtful face, weighted with too many burdens.

“You will see,” says Grantaire.

The plan advances. One night per week they pass together, and sometimes the mornings, and often on Sundays. Before long Enjolras outstrips even Grantaire’s expertise, so that they have no choice but to conduct further research.

The bedside table fills up with books and pamphlets purchased from trunks in alleyways. There are nights where the books are spread out across the bed, and Grantaire’s conceptual sketches, too, and Enjolras and Grantaire are spread across the bed, lit with the fires of knowledge. 

The night of General Lamarque’s death, Enjolras’ ankles are hooked over Grantaire’s shoulders and the news does not reach them until morning. By then the simmering city has cooled. 

They attend a somber gathering of their friends, who vote for a silent march to trail the funeral-train. It is Grantaire’s suggestion. A quiet protest will leave the strongest impression and be the most galling to those who would repress it, he argues: they will be seen by all the people, and the authorities will have no ground to stop them. The move promises maximum exposure at minimum danger.

Enjolras is disappointed, but no fool. He can see that any rallying cry sent out now will travel only so far. He approves the idea and looks at Grantaire with approval, as he has begun to do.

Lamarque’s funeral is a glorious and triumphant day. Les Amis, handsome in their best clothes and jauntiest cockades, lead their soundless parade behind the procession and speak volumes. They are joined at every step by more and more mourners, in rags and riches, until it seems that all of Paris marches in lockstep. Once, they pass a knot of national guard, and the soldiers wave them on. The air is full of flags.

On other nights it occurs to Grantaire how close they came to conflagration and it shakes him to the bone. Enjolras and his most combustive friends have been talking less of late of uprisings and more of reforming laws, but there was a time in which they might as easily have fallen, had the book closed on them forever. 

On nights when Grantaire thinks about this, Enjolras tsks and tells him self-pity never altered anything, and then he seizes onto Grantaire until Grantaire’s face changes and no man alive would pity him. Every man, alive or dead, is envious.

Even so he cannot rest. Not until --

“Enjolras?”

“Go to sleep, Grantaire.”


End file.
